Starting easy green?s

[Atitagain]

In the past I’ve had fish in a tank for a while then decided to get plants and fertilize with easy green. So established tank nitrates already present. No worries, but what about starting a fresh tank with plants? No nitrates so if it’s a 20G use 2 squirts and next day maybe not even 10ppm do I dose again to get nitrates up? If so how often till I reach my desired amount? Daily, couple times a day, keep hitting it till it reads what I want?

I ask because I set up a plant grow out tank and needed to get nitrates up as fast as possible. I did like 5 doses in 3 days now to maintain I’m dosing 3ish times a week. Also I now have a 125G with plants that was a fresh restart and it’s fairly heavily planted and I can’t get up past 20ppm dosing once a day and that’s a lot of squirts every time. Ive got fish in now so that will help but I want my plants to thrive as well (all were transplanted from other tanks)

[Patrick_G]

A trick I learned from @Bentley Pascoe’s GSAS talk is to space the dosing out over the week so the plants always have a stable amount of macros. 
My personal experience is that I sometimes need to use a higher dose than is recommended. I let the parameters and plants tell me what to do. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Patrick_G

[Flumpweesel]

Wouldn't adding some fish food help bring the nitrates up depending what you use might be a little cheaper than going heavy on ferts. As there are no fish in there and plants love ammonia it should be safe.

[Atitagain]

@Patrick_G. @Flumpweesel not sure if original post was worded right or maybe I’m not understanding. What I’m asking, especially with the plant grow out tank I want nitrates riding at 30ppm at all times how to get there as fast as possible? Is it a week long process? Or can I (is it safe) in a 20G to pump in 8-10 squirts 1st day so it’s immediately/ next day at 30-40ppm. 
thank you for your responses I hope I’m not being difficult I’m just new to this and in my 125G that’s a lot of plants and I want to do what I can to minimize the melt back or chances of losing them. Maybe I just should be patient.😬😬😬

[Flumpweesel]

ok let me think for a bit  - definitely no fish in there right?

[Atitagain]

On 10/15/2021 at 6:20 AM, Flumpweesel said:

ok let me think for a bit  - definitely no fish in there right?

Yes there is now a decent stocking , in the 125G not the grow out tank tho

I’m sure it’s just me being impatient 😬😵‍💫

[Flumpweesel]

So if I (no expert ) was setting up a plant propagation tank I would use something with just enough water to sit about an inch above the top, no filter but air stone to circulate. I might have a gravel in the bottom to encourage root growth.  I would use old tank water and ferts but I might use garden or house plant ferts because they will have higher nitrates as they aren't worried about hurting fish and will therefore work out cheaper (if its in the shed anyway) . I would also have this on a sunny windowsill rather than light because its cheap and I have a old house with a pitiful number of sockets but south facing windows.

I haven't done this in while I used to rotate stem plants for goldfish - futile really. 

[Isaac M]

@Atitagain Easy Green will get you about 3ppm of nitrates with the recommended dose (1 pump per 10 gallon). The goal with the plants is to provide them with enough nutrients to grow, not too little that they run out and not too much that algae can begin to grow(this is why I would advise against adding 30ppm of nitrates all at once, maybe you do not need that much or maybe you need even more, you will need to test to find out first). Every single aquarium will be different due to the amount of plants and rate of growth of plants(fast or slow growing plants, stems vs root feeders, CO2, light intensity, etc). I would recommend starting off on the low end, maybe dosing easy green and testing your water everyday to see how many nitrates are still available. If it goes to zero and/or plants show deficiencies (especially deficiencies not related to nitrogen/ nitrates), you can then increase the dosing regimen. Again, as plants continue to grow and there is more plants, then you will need more fertilizer to keep up. However, the opposite is also true so when you do a heavy trim, you can also scale the dosing back a bit. I hope that helps! 

[Patrick_G]

I’d also look into dosing Nitrogen and Potassium separately since those are the nutrients that will get used up the fastest and you avoid an excess build up of the micronutrients. You could even consider the full Estimative Index method!  There are calculators online that can help you with dosing rates and absorption rates. 
I’m a bit to lazy for all that so I just stick to Easy Green and dose a little extra if I’m seeing problems with the plants. I’ll also dose some Leaf Zone occasionally for more Potassium. My Java Ferns seem to love it. 
Also, I’m not sure that plants melting when introduced to a new tank is completely connected to lack of nitrogen, but having a constant level sure can’t hurt. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Patrick_G

[Atitagain]

@Isaac M that makes sense adding to much at one time I’m kinda asking for algae. That helped plenty, thank you!

@Patrick_G I think I do need potassium I can’t get Java fern to grow no matter what I do. Everyone always says how easy it is, yea right. And to show how much of a gluten for pain I am I have 1 on the way from ACO. I’ll try that and see if it helps. Thanks